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She did not do so to-day. She knew from many previous countings that there were exactly eighty-seven and a half of those birds. The joining seam cut off all but the magnificent tail of what would have been the eighty-eighth.
"'Why, in order that the countings may not get mixed, of course; it is necessary that when he has paid for one idol he should carry it to a place aside, and then return and pay for the second, carrying it to the first, and in such a manner to the end. In this way the sun sinks behind the mountains.
"No force can turn aside one from the other, nothing can intervene- -not because it is either romance or reality, but simply because it is a law. You understand?" I bent my head silently. "It may be thousands of years before such a meeting is consummated," he continued "For thousands of years are but hours in the eternal countings.
They require too much space and too much care. The calculation of a single percentage requires the counting of some hundreds of individuals, taking many square meters for their cultivation, and this, as my best races are biennial, during two years. For this reason the countings must always be very limited, and selection is restrained to the most perfect specimens.
For a time we counted the coming of the larger wave, and then the countings grew confused and we fell asleep. As a matter of fact we lost all count of time in that dark place.
Moreover if the agreement with the law of probability is once conceded, the whole curve is defined by the average and the quartiles, and the result of hundreds of measurements or countings may be summed up in three, or, in the case of symmetrical curves, perhaps in two figures. Also in comparing different curves with one another, the quartiles are of great importance.
Before the others returned he began to count the articles on the shelves. He struck a difficulty in the cans of condensed milk. Repeated countings gave the same total. "By Gad, we've been robbed!" he cried. "Unless there's still a case in the loft." He hastened to the stairs. The instant his weight creaked on the boards overhead the burly, lounging figure by the stove sprang into activity.
And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money, losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after all, so valueless, sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind, for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the dust of the highroad.
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